Elimination of Bisphenol A from Wastewater through Membrane Filtration Processes

Abstract

New priorities for the environment have resulted in a reassessment of modern technology for treatment of urban wastewater. Urban wastewater treatment mainly involves the elimination or reduction of anthropogenic organic micropollutants in the aquatic environment. In this paper, the effectiveness of bisphenol A elimination from wastewater, after biological treatment, through a complex ultrafiltration/reverse osmosis purification process was evaluated. The effectiveness of the wastewater treatment process in the tested system was also evaluated with a number of other physical and chemical analyses for pH, turbidity, colour, absorbance, TOC, phenol index, conductivity and the concentration of selected heavy metals. Within this study, the change in the hydraulic performance of the membranes was also investigated. The effectiveness of the reduction of bisphenol A concentrations during the process of ultrafiltration was small, due to the significant difference between the size of the pores of the membrane and the size of eliminated micropollutants. In the process of reverse osmosis, the wastewater treatment system reported that the concentration of bisphenol A was reduced by 68%. In the tested treatment system, the ultrafiltration/reverse osmosis completely removed colour, lead and chromium. Other contaminants were eliminated by more than 31%. In both membrane processes, there was evidence that the membrane pores were blocked, but this occurred to a greater extent during the process of reverse osmosis.

Application of Waste Polymers as Basic Material for Ultrafiltration Membranes Preparation

“…However, in the Xia and Ni [23] studies on membranes made of PVDF and graphene oxide, the absorbance was reduced by 23-28%. Similarly in Dudziak et al studies [24], turbidity was reduced by commercial ultrafiltration membranes by about 90%, the color by 80%, and the absorbance by less than 60%. The concentration of bisphenol A was reduced by only a few percent, which was a much lower value, however, not having a full ratio in relation to the phenol index.…”

Thermocatalytic membrane distillation for clean water production

“…In our work, CSF was combined with MD to simultaneously degrade BPA while recovering distilled water. BPA was chosen as a model compound, because it is a common micropollutant 32 with a well-documented endocrine-disrupting activity and toxicity 33 . In this work, we heated the water contaminated by BPA at mild temperatures (30-65°C) to facilitate the degradation process by CSF and to drive steam through a hollow fiber polypropylene MD membrane, simultaneously.…”

Novel Class of Isoxazole-Based Gelators for the Separation of Bisphenol A from Water and Cleanup of Oil Spills

“…They are mostly based on chromatographic techniques 24−26 or reverse osmosis. 27 However, the practical implementation of these methods is questionable as they fail to quantitate separation of bisphenol from water and are largely uneconomic. Thus, there is a constant demand for an effective, alternative, and an economical way to separate bisphenol from water.…”

“…There exist certain methods for the separation of bisphenol from water. They are mostly based on chromatographic techniques − or reverse osmosis . However, the practical implementation of these methods is questionable as they fail to quantitate separation of bisphenol from water and are largely uneconomic.…”